If you had a medical emergency and needed money I would help you out. Universal healthcare is my #1 issue. The number of people who go bankrupt due to illness is shameful.

I just think it is ridiculous people have to decide between kemo and eating. The thing I don't get bro is why do people always think of the Canadian model when the German model which incorporates insurance companies wouldn't be a better fit for us.

Because they don’t want to lower costs, especially for drugs. This is something Trump ran on and has failed to deliver.

Quote:

Yet soon after he became president, Trump changed his tune on direct negotiations. After meeting with pharmaceutical executives, adopting the industry’s rhetoric, he called it “price fixing.” Instead Trump has pushed two years of increased costs and reduced coverage, crowned by hollow rhetoric.

Today, there is nothing stopping drug companies from continuing to raise prices and no place Americans can go for relief when they do. Americans overwhelmingly want the government to use its buying power to reverse increases and control the cost of drugs. And they want an administration that will make that a priority.

If you had a medical emergency and needed money I would help you out. Universal healthcare is my #1 issue. The number of people who go bankrupt due to illness is shameful.

I just think it is ridiculous people have to decide between kemo and eating. The thing I don't get bro is why do people always think of the Canadian model when the German model which incorporates insurance companies wouldn't be a better fit for us.

We had that before Obamacare and that is when people with pre-existing conditions were told to go duck themselves. You live in a fantasy world. Your theory works if you believe in insurance companies acting altruistically and not finding ways to duck over the old and sick.

Because they don’t want to lower costs, especially for drugs. This is something Trump ran on and has failed to deliver.

Quote:

Yet soon after he became president, Trump changed his tune on direct negotiations. After meeting with pharmaceutical executives, adopting the industry’s rhetoric, he called it “price fixing.” Instead Trump has pushed two years of increased costs and reduced coverage, crowned by hollow rhetoric.

Today, there is nothing stopping drug companies from continuing to raise prices and no place Americans can go for relief when they do. Americans overwhelmingly want the government to use its buying power to reverse increases and control the cost of drugs. And they want an administration that will make that a priority.

White males, evangelicals, WWC, etc are also identity politics. So let's not act like it's new. When it is not about the aforementioned, it is identity politics but when it is, I guess it is the way things should be right?

What? Total bollocks.

You act like people haven't slaughtered and mocked these groups for the past two decades. How else was the Tea party received outside of it's narrow group? Or any republican to courted them against Obama? This board, the internet, the mainsteam media has for years mocked any extremist political ideology and identity politics under any brand for the most part. You seem to have a need to want to believe we need to go through the civil rights movement again despite the patent fact the vast majority of people are past that.

To catch you up: A Wall Street Journal exposé reported last week that major U.S. health insurance companies dramatically inflated their cost projections under Medicare's Part D prescription drug benefit program for financial gain.

Under peculiar language of the statute, insurers are paid by Medicare for drugs in advance of their purchase, based on their own estimated outlays. However, they only have to repay a portion of the overpayments to the Treasury if their estimates come in high. Insurers exploited this loophole for a decade, and American taxpayers coughed up a staggering $9 billion to insurers for drug costs that they never actually incurred.

Giants like UnitedHealthcare, which covers many AARP members, won’t be voluntarily returning the windfall anytime soon. They are feigning ignorance and blaming drugmakers – their favorite foil – for unpredictable price increases that led to the inaccurate cost estimates.

As someone who works with payers (not just insurance companies, most unions self insure on drug spend for their members as do many large companies) to lower their prescription drug costs, the drug manufacturers are absolutely to blame for rising drug costs. Pick any drug and I can tell you how much they've raised their prices on it over the last 10 years. Those coupons they're talking about were instituted by drug companies to milk payers for every last penny and to circumvent plan designs. Any attempt by payers to control costs or manage utilization and the drug companies go nuts. The PBMs (not all, just some) who do a poor job of utilization management are complicit in rising prices because they're basically doing the drug companies' bidding in doing nothing to combat rising prices so the idea that the drug companies are shifting the blame to PBMs is laughable. The drug companies really are reprehensible.

One problem the Democrats may have with their leftward shift is that it’s ultimately impossible to please the far left. There’ll always be a marginalised group or a new grievance that they need to iron out before they can archieve purity. Trying to pander to every grievance will fudge them. On the other hand, good centrist policies that put more money in your pocket and more food on the table is what should win. Fingers crossed.

You realize this is literally what happened the GOP in the mid terms even as the Dems were shifting left.

If you had a medical emergency and needed money I would help you out. Universal healthcare is my #1 issue. The number of people who go bankrupt due to illness is shameful.

I just think it is ridiculous people have to decide between kemo and eating. The thing I don't get bro is why do people always think of the Canadian model when the German model which incorporates insurance companies wouldn't be a better fit for us.

As someone who works with payers (not just insurance companies, most unions self insure on drug spend for their members as do many large companies) to lower their prescription drug costs, the drug manufacturers are absolutely to blame for rising drug costs. Pick any drug and I can tell you how much they've raised their prices on it over the last 10 years. Those coupons they're talking about were instituted by drug companies to milk payers for every last penny and to circumvent plan designs. Any attempt by payers to control costs or manage utilization and the drug companies go nuts. The PBMs (not all, just some) who do a poor job of utilization management are complicit in rising prices because they're basically doing the drug companies' bidding in doing nothing to combat rising prices so the idea that the drug companies are shifting the blame to PBMs is laughable. The drug companies really are reprehensible.

Obamacare bit the bullet on pre-existing conditions which the US had been avoiding for years. In a pure market none of these things get covered. If the likelihood that you will require expensive medical treatment is 1, who is going to insure you at an affordable rate? The whole point of insurance is that risk is pooled.

Obamacare bit the bullet on pre-existing conditions which the US had been avoiding for years. In a pure market none of these things get covered. If the likelihood that you will require expensive medical treatment is 1, who is going to insure you at an affordable rate? The whole point of insurance is that risk is pooled.

Good thing the Donald was pre-existing conditions to be covered as well

What he says and what he does are two different things. He ran as a populist (to the left on some issues) and governs as a typical American conservative. He was smart to tap into the political trends here and elsewhere but he has to run on his record now, not empty promises.

As someone who works with payers (not just insurance companies, most unions self insure on drug spend for their members as do many large companies) to lower their prescription drug costs, the drug manufacturers are absolutely to blame for rising drug costs. Pick any drug and I can tell you how much they've raised their prices on it over the last 10 years. Those coupons they're talking about were instituted by drug companies to milk payers for every last penny and to circumvent plan designs. Any attempt by payers to control costs or manage utilization and the drug companies go nuts. The PBMs (not all, just some) who do a poor job of utilization management are complicit in rising prices because they're basically doing the drug companies' bidding in doing nothing to combat rising prices so the idea that the drug companies are shifting the blame to PBMs is laughable. The drug companies really are reprehensible.

I have no love for drug companies at all. Appreciate the insights.

Cheers. I also don't have a lot of love for PBMs (part of my job is auditing contractual pricing performance and some of the ways they screw over payers are ridiculous) but the blame needs to go where it's due and in the case of rising drug costs, it's 95% due to the drug companies.

Obamacare bit the bullet on pre-existing conditions which the US had been avoiding for years. In a pure market none of these things get covered. If the likelihood that you will require expensive medical treatment is 1, who is going to insure you at an affordable rate? The whole point of insurance is that risk is pooled.

Good thing the Donald was pre-existing conditions to be covered as well

He plays that guy on TV alright. It's spreading the cost that's the nettle he won't grasp. How does he intend to pay for it?

I saw some polling showing that virtually any Democrat in a 1:1 against Trump has an 8 point lead or greater. That will obviously narrow but does show the problem Trump has - he's pandered to his base so.much that he's alienated almost everyone else. It's going to be hard from here to recover that, unless the Democrats pick a candidate that he can really demonize

Obamacare bit the bullet on pre-existing conditions which the US had been avoiding for years. In a pure market none of these things get covered. If the likelihood that you will require expensive medical treatment is 1, who is going to insure you at an affordable rate? The whole point of insurance is that risk is pooled.

Good thing the Donald was pre-existing conditions to be covered as well

He plays that guy on TV alright. It's spreading the cost that's the nettle he won't grasp. How does he intend to pay for it?

Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris praised marijuana Monday as something that “gives more people joy,” and admitted to smoking the drug while in college.

“I have and I inhaled, I did inhale,” Harris told The Breakfast Club on Monday. “It was a long time ago, but yes. I just broke news.”

Harris went on to discuss her pot-smoking habits, claiming that she enjoyed smoking a joint in college while listening to Tupac and Snoop Dogg. However, Harris’s story came under scrutiny after several social media users pointed out that Harris graduated college in 1986, years before either Tupac or Snoop Dogg released their respective first albums. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Claims There Is ‘Racial Bias’ In Healthcare Delivery System)

Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris praised marijuana Monday as something that “gives more people joy,” and admitted to smoking the drug while in college.

“I have and I inhaled, I did inhale,” Harris told The Breakfast Club on Monday. “It was a long time ago, but yes. I just broke news.”

Harris went on to discuss her pot-smoking habits, claiming that she enjoyed smoking a joint in college while listening to Tupac and Snoop Dogg. However, Harris’s story came under scrutiny after several social media users pointed out that Harris graduated college in 1986, years before either Tupac or Snoop Dogg released their respective first albums. (RELATED: Kamala Harris Claims There Is ‘Racial Bias’ In Healthcare Delivery System)

I have no strong opinion of Kamala Harris but surely when the entire point of a story is about how a person wsa smoking pot at the time, they should probably get a bit of a pass on misremembering some of the details?

I have no strong opinion of Kamala Harris but surely when the entire point of a story is about how a person wsa smoking pot at the time, they should probably get a bit of a pass on misremembering some of the details?

Thing is, the whole smoking pot thing is kind of done and dusted by now. Harris strikes me as another neo-liberal trying to up her progressive credentials by doing things like this. It comes across fake.

I have no strong opinion of Kamala Harris but surely when the entire point of a story is about how a person wsa smoking pot at the time, they should probably get a bit of a pass on misremembering some of the details?

Thing is, the whole smoking pot thing is kind of done and dusted by now. Harris strikes me as another neo-liberal trying to up her progressive credentials by doing things like this. It comes across fake.

If people keep asking the question, the answer is generally gonna be some variation of "Yes, and I inhaled" more and more. It's entirely acceptable to do so and more and more people will have actually done so in their past.

The Tupac/Snoop thing is why this comes across as out of touch "How do you do, fellow kids" not because she's admitting to smoking pot.

I have no strong opinion of Kamala Harris but surely when the entire point of a story is about how a person wsa smoking pot at the time, they should probably get a bit of a pass on misremembering some of the details?

Thing is, the whole smoking pot thing is kind of done and dusted by now. Harris strikes me as another neo-liberal trying to up her progressive credentials by doing things like this. It comes across fake.

If people keep asking the question, the answer is generally gonna be some variation of "Yes, and I inhaled" more and more. It's entirely acceptable to do so and more and more people will have actually done so in their past.

The Tupac/Snoop thing is why this comes across as out of touch "How do you do, fellow kids" not because she's admitting to smoking pot.